social media case study: Virgin gets it right with customer relations

What works about Virgin’s PR here is that the day, though militantly organised, somehow gives the impression of being cobbled together at the last minute (and that genuinely is meant as a compliment). Tea breaks and tongue-in-cheek ideas make the day fun for the teams, which feeds through into interactions with consumers.

Even the attitude of its press release was spot on, “None of us are going to stand up and say that we’re ‘social media experts’… We’re all learning about social and appreciate that by its nature it’s about community and, when working together, an engaged crowd consisting of Virgin teams along with fans and followers means a fantastic hotch potch of knowledge, ideas and expertise.”

via ReputationOnline » Blog Archive » Virgin’s social media ‘marathon’ was anything but tired.

hedging bets on Tweeters’ sentiment

News junkies are not the only ones who have taken notice of the value of information coming out of Twitter. Derwent Capital Markets is developing a “Twitter hedge fund” that will make market predictions solely based on sentiment analysis of Twitter users (based on research out of MIT). Based on initial investor interest, Derwent Absolute Return Fund Ltd is expected to launch with approximately $100 million in assets.

via Twitter Is About To Get Bigger – Kashmir Hill – The Not-So Private Parts – Forbes.